Overview

Second in the Kurt Wallander series.

On the Swedish coastline, two bodies, victims of grisly torture and cold execution, are discovered in a life raft. With no witnesses, no motives, and no crime scene, Detective Kurt Wallander is frustrated and uncertain he has the ability to solve a case as mysterious as it is heinous. But after the victims are traced to the Baltic state of Latvia, a country gripped by the upheaval of Soviet disintegration, Major Liepa of the Riga police takes...

More About
This Book

Overview

Second in the Kurt Wallander series.

On the Swedish coastline, two bodies, victims of grisly torture and cold execution, are discovered in a life raft. With no witnesses, no motives, and no crime scene, Detective Kurt Wallander is frustrated and uncertain he has the ability to solve a case as mysterious as it is heinous. But after the victims are traced to the Baltic state of Latvia, a country gripped by the upheaval of Soviet disintegration, Major Liepa of the Riga police takes over the investigation. Thinking his work done, Wallander slips into routine once more, until suddenly, he is called to Riga and plunged into an alien world where shadows are everywhere, everything is watched, and old regimes will do anything to stay alive.

“A gripping, thoughtful police procedural that engages from the first page.”–Irish Independent

The New York Times

Whether it's a magisterial storm at sea or the ''gray mud, gray trees, gray sky'' of a barren town in the dead of winter, the bleak imagery in these books is both a reflection of Wallander's state of mind and a comment on the greater darkness that he senses creeping over his country and his world. — Marilyn Stasio

The Washington Post

Mankell capably handles the sneaking-around and charging-around aspects of all this, but it is Wallender's tumultuous interior life -- a Swedish specialty -- that keeps us anxiously connected with him and rooting for his physical and mental survival. In Sweden, Wallender spends most of his time "chasing drunken burglars and escaped bulls." Finding himself removed from a political atmosphere he considers stultifying and inside one that is as fraught with possibilities as with peril, he feels, for a time, liberated. — Richard Lipez

Publishers Weekly

Set against the chaotic backdrop of eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Mankell's intense, accomplished mystery, the last in his Kurt Wallander series (Firewall, etc.), explores one man's struggle to find truth and justice in a society increasingly bereft of either. Here the provincial Swedish detective takes on a probably fruitless task: investigating the murders of two unidentified men washed up on the Swedish coast in an inflatable dinghy. The only clues: their dental work suggests they're from an Eastern Bloc country; the raft is Yugoslavian. But their deaths mushroom into an international incident that takes Wallander to Riga, Latvia, and enmeshes him in an incredibly dangerous and emotionally draining situation, battling forces far larger than the "bloodless burglaries and frauds" he typically pursues in Sweden. In Riga, Wallander must deal with widespread governmental corruption, which opens his eyes to the chilling reality of life in the totalitarian Eastern Bloc: grim, harrowing and volatile. Wallander's introspection and self-doubt make him compellingly real, and his efforts to find out what happened to those men on the life raft makes for riveting reading. There's a pervasive sense of Scandinavian gloom, in Wallander and in the novel, that might be difficult for some American readers, but this is a very worthy book-a unique combination of police procedural and spy thriller that also happens to be a devastating critique of Soviet-style Communism. (Apr. 24) Forecast: Despite considerable success abroad (the author has won the U.K.'s Gold Dagger Award) and increased exposure here (two of his books have recently been reprinted in Vintage's Black Lizard series), Mankell still has an uphill struggle to break out of the "literary" ghetto. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Meet the Author

More by this Author

Internationally acclaimed author Henning Mankell has written numerous Kurt Wallander mysteries. The books have been published in thirty-three countries and consistently top the bestseller lists in Europe, receiving major literary prizes (including the UK’s Gold Dagger Award in 2002) and generating numerous international film and television adaptations. Born in a village in northern Sweden in 1948, Mankell divides his time between Sweden and Maputo, Mozambique, where he works as the director of Teatro Avenida.

Biography

Henning Mankell was born in Stockholm in 1948. He is the author of many works of fiction, including the nine novels in the Kurt Wallander series. He has worked as an actor, theatre director, and manager in Sweden and in Mozambique -- where he is now head of the Teatro Avenida in Maputo.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

It started snowing shortly after 10 a.m.

The man in the wheelhouse of the fishing boat cursed. He'd heard the forecast, but hoped they might make the Swedish coast before the storm hit. If he hadn't been held up at Hiddensee the night before, he'd have been within sight of Ystad by now and could have changed course a few degrees eastwards. As it was, there were still seven nautical miles to go and if the snow started coming down heavily, he'd be forced to heave to and wait until visibility improved.

He cursed again. It doesn't pay to be mean, he thought. I should have done what I'd meant to do last autumn, and bought a new radar. My old Decca can't be relied on any more. I should have got one of those new American models, but I was too mean. I didn't trust the East Germans, either. Didn't trust them not to cheat me.

He found it hard to grasp that there was no longer a country called East Germany, that a whole nation state had ceased to exist. History had tidied up its old borders overnight. Now there was just Germany, and nobody really knew what was going to happen when the two formerly separate peoples tried to work together. At first, when the Berlin wall came down, he had felt uneasy. Would the enormous changes mean the carpet would be pulled from under his feet? His East German partners had reassured him. Nothing would change in the foreseeable future. Indeed, this upheaval might even create new opportunities.

The snow was falling more heavily and the wind was veering towards the south-west. He lit a cigarette and poured coffee into the mug in the special holder next to the compass. The heat in the wheelhouse was making him sweat, and the smell of diesel oil was getting up his nose. He glanced towards the engine room. He could see one of Jakobson's feet on the narrow bunk down there, his big toe sticking out through a hole in his sock. Might as well let him sleep on, he thought. If we have to heave to, he can take over the watch while I get a few hours' rest. He took a sip of the lukewarm coffee, and thought again of what had happened the night before.

He'd been forced to wait in the dilapidated little harbour to the west of Hiddensee for over five hours before the lorry appeared, rattling through the darkness to collect the goods. Weber had insisted that the delay was due to his lorry breaking down, and that could well have been true. The lorry was an ancient, rebuilt Russian military vehicle, and the man had often been astonished that it was still running. There again, he didn't trust Weber. Weber had never cheated him, but he'd made up his mind once and for all that he was not be trusted. It was a precautionary measure. After all, the stuff he took to the East Germans was worth a lot. Each time, he took 20 or 30 computers, about 100 mobile phones and just as many car stereos—goods worth millions of kronor. If he got caught, he wouldn't be able to talk his way out of a long prison sentence. Nor would he be able to count on an ounce of help from Weber. In the world he lived in, everybody thought only about number one.

He checked the course on the compass, and adjusted it by two degrees to the north. The log indicated that he was holding to a steady eight knots. There were six and a half nautical miles to go before he would see the coast and turn towards Brantevik. The greyish-blue waves were still visible ahead, but the snow seemed to be getting heavier.

Five more trips, he thought, and that's it. I'll have made all the money I need and I'll be able to make my move. He lit another cigarette, smiling at the prospect. He would put all this behind him and set off on the journey to Porto Santos, where he'd open a bar. Soon, he'd no longer need to stand on watch in the leaky, draughty wheelhouse while Jakobson snored on his bunk down in the engine room. He couldn't be sure what his new life would hold, but he longed for it even so.

Abruptly as it had started, it stopped snowing. At first he didn't dare to believe his luck, but then it became clear that snowflakes were no longer swirling past his eyes. I might be able to make it after all, he thought. Maybe the storm is passing and heading towards Denmark?

Whistling, he poured himself some more coffee. The bag containing the money was hanging on the wall. Another 30,000 kronor closer to Porto Santos, the little island just off Madeira. Paradise was waiting.

He was just about to take another sip of coffee when he caught sight of the dinghy. If the weather hadn't lifted, he'd never have noticed it. There it was, though, bobbing up and down on the waves, just 50 metres to port. A red rubber life-raft. He wiped the condensation off the glass and peered out at the dinghy. It's empty, he thought. It's fallen off a ship. He turned the wheel and slowed right down. Jakobson, woken by the change in speed, stuck his unshaven face up into the wheelhouse.

"Are we there?" he asked.

"There's a life-raft to port," said the man at the wheel, whose name was Holmgren. "We'll have it. It's worth a thousand or two. Take the wheel and I'll get the boat-hook.

Jakobson moved over to the wheel while Holmgren pulled the flaps of his cap down over his ears and left the wheelhouse. The wind bit into his face and he clung to the rail. The dinghy came slowly nearer. He started to unfasten the boat-hook that was attached to the side of the wheelhouse. His fingers froze as he struggled with the catches, but eventually he released it and turned back to the water.

He gave a start. The dinghy was only a few metres away from the boat's hull, and he realised his mistake. There were two people inside. Dead people. Jakobson shouted something unintelligible from the wheelhouse: he too had seen what was in the life-raft.

It wasn't the first time Holmgren had seen dead bodies. As a young man doing his military service, a gun had exploded on a manoeuvre, and four of his friends had been blown to bits. Later, during his many years as a professional fisherman, he had seen bodies washed up on beaches or floating in the water.

It struck Holmgren immediately that they were oddly dressed. The two men weren't fishermen or sailors—they were wearing suits. And they were hugging, as if they'd been trying to protect each other from the inevitable. He tried to imagine what had happened. Who could they be?

Jakobson emerged from the wheelhouse and stood by his side.

"Oh, shit!" he said. "Oh, shit! What are we going to do?"

Holmgren thought for a moment.

"Nothing," he said. "If we take them on board we'll only end up with difficult questions to answer. We haven't seen them, simple as that. It is snowing, after all."

"Shall we just let 'em drift?" Jakobson asked.

"Yes," Holmgren answered. "They're dead after all. There's nothing we can do. Besides, I don't want to have to explain where this boat has come from. Do you?"

Jakobson shook his head doubtfully. They stared at the two dead men in silence. Holmgren thought they looked young, hardly more than 30. Their faces were stiff and white. Holmgren shivered.

"Odd that there's no name on the life-raft," Jakobson said. "What ship can it have come from?"

Holmgren took the boat-hook and moved the dinghy round, looking at its sides. Jakobson was right: there was no name.

"What the hell can have happened?" he muttered. "Who are they? How long have they been adrift, wearing suits and ties?"

"How far is it to Ystad?" asked Jakobson.

"Just over six nautical miles."

"We could tow them a bit nearer the coast," said Jakobson, "so that they can drift ashore where they'll be found."

Holmgren thought again, weighing up the pros and cons. The idea of leaving them there was repugnant, he couldn't deny that. At the same time, towing the dinghy would be risky—they might be seen by a ferry or some other vessel.

He made up his mind quickly. He unfastened a painter, leant over the rail and tied it to the life-raft. Jakobson changed course for Ystad, and Holmgren secured the line when the dinghy was about ten metres behind the boat and free of its wake.

When the Swedish coast came into sight, Holmgren cut the rope and the life-raft with the two dead men inside disappeared far behind. Jakobson changed course to the east, and a few hours later they chugged into the harbour at Brantevik. Jakobson collected his pay, got into his Volvo and drove off towards Svarte.

The harbour was deserted. Holmgren locked the wheelhouse and spread a tarpaulin over the cargo hatch. He checked the hawsers slowly and methodically. Then he picked up the bag containing the money, walked over to his old Ford, and coaxed the reluctant engine to life.

Ordinarily he would have allowed himself to dream of Porto Santos, but today all he could picture in his mind's eye was the red life-raft. He tried to work out where it would eventually be washed up. The currents in that area were erratic, the wind gusted and shifted direction constantly. The dinghy could wash up anywhere along the coast. Even so, he guessed that it would be somewhere not far from Ystad, if it hadn't already been spotted by someone on one of the ferries to or from Poland.

It was already starting to get dark as he drove into Ystad. Two men wearing suits, he thought, as he stopped at a red light. In a life-raft. There was something that didn't add up. Something he'd seen without quite registering it. Just as the lights changed to green, he realised what it was. The two men weren't in the dinghy as a result of a ship going down. He couldn't prove it, but he was certain. The two men were already dead when they'd been placed in the dinghy.

On the spur of the moment, he turned right and stopped at one of the phone boxes opposite the bookshop in the square. He rehearsed what he was going to say carefully. Then he dialled 999 and asked for the police. As he waited for them to answer, he watched the snow begin to fall again through the dirty glass of the phone box.

It was February 12, 1991.

CHAPTER 2

Inspector Kurt Wallander sat in his office at the police station in Ystad and yawned. It was such a huge yawn that one of the muscles under his chin locked. The pain was excruciating. Wallander punched at the underside of his jaw with his right hand to free the muscle. Just as he was doing so, Martinsson, one of the younger officers, walked in. He paused in the doorway, puzzled. Wallander continued to massage his jaw until the pain subsided. Martinsson turned to leave.

"We received a strange phone call a few minutes ago," he said. "I thought I'd better check it with you."

"We get strange phone calls every day," Wallander said, wondering why he was being consulted.

"I don't know what to think," Martinsson said. "Some man called from a phone box. He claimed that a rubber life-raft containing two dead bodies would be washed up near here. He hung up without giving his name, or saying who'd been killed or why."

"You get to know after a while," Martinsson replied hesitantly. "Sometimes you can hear straight away that it's a hoax. This time whoever rang seemed very definite."

"Two dead men in a rubber life-raft that's going to be washed up on the coast near here?"

Martinsson nodded.

Wallander stifled another yawn and leaned back in his chair.

"Have we had any reports about a boat sinking or anything like that?" he asked.

"None at all," Martinsson replied.

"Inform all the other police districts along the coast," Wallander said. "Talk to the coastguards. But we can't start a search based on nothing more than an anonymous telephone call. We'll just have to wait and see what happens."

"I'm going home now anyway," Martinsson said, looking at his watch. "Snow or no snow."

Martinsson left, and Wallander stretched out in his chair. He could feel how tired he was. He'd been forced to answer emergency calls two nights in a row. The first night he'd led the hunt for a suspected rapist who'd barricaded himself in an empty summer cottage at Sandskogen. The man was drugged to the eyeballs and there was reason to think he could be armed, so they'd surrounded the place until 5 a.m., when he'd given himself up. The following night Wallander had been called out to a murder in the town centre. A birthday party had got out of hand, and the man whose birthday it was had been stabbed in the temple with a carving knife.

He got up from his chair and put on his fleece jacket. I've got to get some sleep, he thought. Somebody else can look after the snowstorm. When he left the station, the gusts of wind forced him to bend double. He unlocked his Peugeot and scrambled in. The snow that had settled on the windows gave him the feeling of being in a warm, cosy room. He started the engine, inserted a tape, and closed his eyes.

Immediately his thoughts turned to Rydberg. It was less than a month since his old friend and colleague had died of cancer. Wallander had known about the illness the year before, when they were struggling together to solve the murder of an old couple at Lenarp. During the last months of his life, when it was obvious to everybody and not least to Rydberg himself that the end was nigh, Wallander had tried to imagine going to the station knowing that Rydberg wouldn't be there. How would he manage without the advice and judgement of old Rydberg, who had so much experience? It was still too soon to answer that question. He hadn't had any difficult cases since Rydberg had gone on sick leave for the last time, and then passed away. But the sense of pain and loss was still very real.

Your Rating:

Your Recommendations:

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked,
or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to
Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original
and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you
and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not
violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help
ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer.
However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or
to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the
information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reminder:

- By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its
sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the
review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.

- Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly
those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com
also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.

Excellent follow-up to "Faceless Killers"

An excellent read - I couldn't put it down. Although dated a bit by subsequent events in the Baltic Republics, it remains a gripping read and well worth the effort. Though it could be read stand alone, it is better as a follow-up to "Faceless Killers". Wallander is an appealing character and I look forward to reading further into this series.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Was this review helpful? YesNoThank you for your feedback.Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

Anonymous

Posted June 21, 2009

I've become a real Kurt Wallander fan.

I had become a huge fan of the Myron Bolitar series of thriller novels written by Harlan Coben and read each and every one of them. It didn't seem possible I'd find a series by another author that I enjoyed as much but I was wrong. Henning Mankell's police officer Kurt Wallander makes an enjoying, enthralling, everyday type of character who has "investigated" his way into my list of most interesting fictional heroes list. I had read two Kurt Wallander mysteries before reading "The Dogs of Riga" and learned to watch for clues as to the identity of the villian. This novel was slightly darker than the other two but, none the less, equally enjoyable. One particular aspect of Mr. Mankell's novel is that he brings up topics addressed in the other K.W. stories,which gives more dimension to the story. I'd recommend this book to other mystery novel fans.

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Was this review helpful? YesNoThank you for your feedback.Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

The Scandinoir tsunami has broken on either side of me and left

The Scandinoir tsunami has broken on either side of me and left me largely unmoved. I'm tired of protagonists who are incompetent at the business of being human beings and stories full of characters who are all broken doves. So it could be that my reaction to The Dogs of Riga -- author Mankell's second Wallander novel -- is one of relief in finding an entry in this genre that didn't make me want to open a vein.

Inspector Kurt Wallander, Our Hero, is a detective in a provincial town in southern Sweden. When two murdered Latvians wash up on his shores in a life raft, he ends up falling down a rabbit hole trying to solve the crime and the associated murder of his Latvian counterpart, whom he befriended earlier in the story.

As seems to be the case among the Scandinavian authors I've read, Mankell is more concerned with characterization than he is with setting. We spend extensive time inside Wallander's head, and the other characters are well-realized and feel authentic. The dialog is likewise realistic and serves to both move the plot and further the characterizations. However, if you don't know what Ystad (Our Hero's hometown) looks like before reading this, you won't be any better informed afterwards. To be fair, Mankell spends more time describing Riga than he does any other location, possibly because Wallander is seeing it for the first time, and possibly because it was still considered exotic in 1992 when this book first appeared in Sweden.

It's impossible to overlook the fact that when Mankell wrote this book, the dust from the fallen Berlin Wall was still blowing through central Europe and the post-Soviet era was both new and fragile. Much of the plot hinges on the political upheaval in the Baltic states and the possible threat posed by ex-Soviet hardliners wanting their empire back. That we know how this all worked out doesn't detract from the story, though, in the same way that knowing the interwar years in Europe wrecked on the twin shoals of fascism and war doesn't take away from the experience of reading an Alan Furst novel.

I use that comparison advisedly, because The Dogs of Riga is as much a novel of intrigue as it is a police procedural -- perhaps even more so. Without giving too much away: Wallander finds himself involved with Latvian dissidents who are trying to resist the old-regime apparatchiks who are working to throttle Latvian democracy in its crib. There are midnight meetings, shadows to be evaded, secret messages to be passed, and a fair amount of skulking around that wouldn't be out of place in a spy novel. As a result, Wallander isn't nearly as much a human wreck as he was in Faceless Killers, and most of the non-Swedish characters are likewise acting rather than wallowing in their various dysfunctions.

It's this atypical excursion into political intrigue that salvaged this book for me. Wallander is still too dithery and diffident to really engage me as a protagonist, and the general bleakness wears after a while. It could simply be that after my various other excursions with Larsson, Nesbo and Mankell, this genre is lost to me. If you're a fan, you'll probably enjoy it more than I did. I may read the next Wallander tale sometime in the future, but not soon.

Was this review helpful? YesNoThank you for your feedback.Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

bayareagirl

Posted May 22, 2013

over wrought -- tells us rather than shows us; unbelievable when

over wrought -- tells us rather than shows us; unbelievable when insider suddenly materializes to help infiltrate ....no spoilers! as if it could be spoiled. Should have stuck with bodies in the lifeboat and Sweden.

Was this review helpful? YesNoThank you for your feedback.Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

Highly, Highly Recommended!!

This series is nearly as good as the "Girl With the Dragon Tatoo" series. These are not as psycho-thriller as the other series, but just as suspensful and just as mysterious. Good book!

Was this review helpful? YesNoThank you for your feedback.Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

Anonymous

Posted November 8, 2012

My first wallender book

Although i enjoy the intertwining elements of murder mystery and following the slow start of the resulting police investigation, i was fascinated by the all too human wallender. As he carefully picks up clues, he gets frazzled from exhaustion and lack of sleep or regular meals. He works himself to the disregard (not only of his health) but ogf his family. Wallender takes rare breaks inderto visit his crusty old gather who upbraids wallender for his choice of profession but also his lack of attendance upon the father. Wallender has a sentimental side that misses his wife but also allows the gruffness shown to others to disappear when his daughter makes one of her unannoumced visits. Wallender worries about his daughter, his dad, his ex wife between his endless bouts of self-doubt and his non stop investigations. As i read a wallender novel, i sometimes get so involved that i feel that i too have neen hard at work! The illusion only ends when wallender falls accross vital clues then makes a very satisfying conclusion.... leaving the end of the novel in inspired resolution

Was this review helpful? YesNoThank you for your feedback.Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

Anonymous

Posted August 21, 2012

Great read and very difficult to put down

I am so into these books

Was this review helpful? YesNoThank you for your feedback.Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

Anonymous

Posted August 7, 2012

Another excellent book from a wonderful series.

Another excellent book from a wonderful series.

Was this review helpful? YesNoThank you for your feedback.Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

Anonymous

Posted December 29, 2011

Good second book but...

....not as good as the first one.

Was this review helpful? YesNoThank you for your feedback.Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

telltales

Posted August 19, 2011

Great series

All of this series needs to be on Nook.

Was this review helpful? YesNoThank you for your feedback.Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.